May 22, 2011

Gosh.  My smug-ometer reading is off the dial this morning!  You know, with the Rapture let-down, and all.  What a bunch of idiots.

So, I've been absent for a while, I know.  But, it's Spring . . . and all my life, I've had a hard time concentrating at this time of year.  So much to do, not to mention just watching all the animals, trees and flowers coming to life.

I'm over it now . . . now that the weather will be turning to uncomfortable, overly-warm and humid conditions shortly.  Our blink-of-an-eye Spring will soon be done.

Unlike some others, I haven't let all the Rapture hoopla and the Spring mind-fog get in the way of life (except for posting here and commenting elsewhere), however.  If you can hang on a minute while I get my old-fashioned, purple-covered, paper calendar, I'll tell you what I've been up to.

Okay, I'm back.  So, March.  A fairly normal month, with regular visits up to see Mom at Antique Village.  That is, until the last 3-4 days of the month, when Mom was taken across the street to the local hospital with vomiting and diarrhea--apparently the result of a stomach virus making the rounds at her assisted-living facility.  She also had the dreaded UTI.

A flurry of activity ensued.

I was called at 10:30 p.m. and arrived at the hospital ER around 12:45 a.m.  Mom was given a room around 4:30 a.m., and I arrived home at 7 a.m.  I don't know how I did it, but I was able to stay awake for 24 hours straight.  (Hey . . . I'm 55.  It's not easy these days.)

That all happened during the late-night and early-morning hours of the 29th and 30th.  I went back again, on the 31st, to see Mom.  She was physically recuperating, but doubly confused, as happens with demented, elderly people in hospitals.

At one point, Mom understood that the staff was hoping for a stool sample from her.  Since none was readily forthcoming, Mom decided to "go in" and retrieve one herself, thereby contaminating the sample and grossing out everyone involved.  It will be a long time before I can forget the look of victory on Mom's face, as she offered up the successful retrieval on her middle finger.

Sad?  Yes.  Amusing?  Well, yes.

Hospitals, typically, are inhospitable places for old people.  Because of Mom's dementia, the hospital staff put an alarm on her bed to alert them if Mom attempted to get out of bed on her own.  She did just that while I was there visiting, and it took a full 10 minutes for someone to show up to check on her!  I mean, that's plenty of time to stand up, trip over the IV lines, fall over and break a hip.

The only purpose the bed alarm served was to jangle my mother's nerves.

On April Fools Day, Tony went to take care of Mom's discharge that afternoon and to take her back to Antique Village.

It wasn't until three or four days after returning to assisted living that she was back to near-normal, again . . . mentally-speaking, that is.

Another major March development was the reappearance of my brother in Mom's life, after a two-year absence.

It all began with a phone call in mid-March, when he left a message for her.  Of course, if he knew anything about Mom's current abilities, he'd know that Mom's not able to access her messages these days.  Just too complex . . . too many steps.  So, periodically, I check her messages for her.

Since then, there have been several more messages, conversation(s), I think, and at least one brief visit.  Gee . . . it would be so nice to believe he's experienced a change of heart and has come to understand how important it is that he be there to offer both tangible and existential support to Mom in her declining--and confusing--years.  But his recent attentions toward Mom have my skin all a-crawl, because . . .

Coincidentally, my brother's youngest son will be graduating from high school this year, and there is no money for college, according to a reliable source.  Coincidentally, Mom recently has become very agitated about her finances, about the fact that she has a court-appointed guardian, about how much the guardian is charging, about how she wants to pay college tuition for my brother's two children, about how she always paid her own bills and never had any trouble, and blah blah blah.  Coincidentally, it's been two years since Mom has had conversations like this and been so distraught about this stuff.

(As regular readers here know, there is a long history of manipulation of Mom by my brother, which is summarized under the category heading, The Great Commotion.)

An aside . . .

If you've been a caregiver, a child, or a friend of someone with dementia, chances are you know about the chronic, brutal testing of your patience, temper and blood pressure levels.  I submit as evidence a phone call with Mom just a few minutes ago.

Over the past few years, Mom has developed a voracious appetite for candy.  Her favorite?  Baby Ruth candy bars.  She calls them Babe Ruths.

Anyway, almost every week I stop at Wal-Mart to pick up a supply for her, along with Depends, Ensure and any toiletries she may need.  I can get them there for about 2/3 of the price charged at most other places.  A few weeks ago, I stopped in and found no Baby Ruths available, except as part of a larger, variety-pack box of about 40 or 50 candy bars, which also included Butterfinger, Pay Day, Nestle's Crunch and so forth.

Since then, I've left about 10 candy bars every week in her dresser drawer.  I don't know how many she eats every day, but they're usually gone very quickly, leaving her without candy for two or three or four days.  When I question her about how many candy bars she eats every day, she usually claims that she hasn't had any candy in the longest time and that someone must have taken the ones I left for her or that she gives them away to people at Antique Village.

I don't believe either of these explanations.  I think the disappearing candy bars can be explained by the fact that Mom has no short-term memory and simply doesn't realize that she may have eaten one, two or three candy bars in any given day.

It's for that reason that I've doled them out these past few weeks, instead of leaving the entire box of 40-50 candy bars for someone to "steal" or for Mom to give away.  Honestly, I think she probably would have eaten all of 40-50 candy bars during the course of a week if I hadn't hidden them away in her closet on the top shelf.  But, you know, it's important for her to save room for her regular meals!

Whenever the talk has turned to candy bars in recent weeks, Mom has complained over and over to me about how she doesn't like the other candy bars (proof positive that she's eating them), only the Baby Ruths.  Of course, she doesn't remember from one conversation to the next that she's said these things to me.

But I do.  Oh, do I ever!

So, on the phone a little while ago, we had the same conversation about the candy bars--for about the third time in as many days.  Mom tells me she wants candy.  I tell her that I left 10 candy bars for her when I was there last week.  She asks where they are.  I tell her that they're in the top drawer of her dresser.  She tells me that they're not there, that someone must have taken them.  I tell her that there might be some in her closet, on the top shelf, and tell her to ask one of the aides to look for her.  Mom asks me why they are in her closet, and gets upset.  I tell her about the big, variety-pack box and why I got it, but I don't want to tell her that I'm trying to dole the candy out.  She tells me that she is going to get a stool and look for them.  I tell her that's dangerous, she could fall.  She angrily muses that she should never have given up driving, otherwise she could go out and get some candy.  I tell her that I'll be up to visit tomorrow and that we'll get candy then.  She complains, again, that she doesn't like the other candy bars.  By now, I am simmering with resentment, while explaining to her that I try very hard to make her happy and to make sure that she has everything she needs, etc.  I rapidly begin to lose my cool, approaching a melt-down of my own.

I'm failing this most recent test of temper and patience.  The call ends badly.

Generally speaking, I have about an 85% success rate these days, way up from earlier scores years ago.  You learn, over time, that it's in your own best interest to develop an ability to foresee how any given conversation is going to unfold.  It gets easier as the years pass, because, eventually, all your conversations will be the same . . . all the time.  Still, it is exhausting.

So, where did I go wrong in my earlier conversation with Mom?

Right at the beginning, it turns out.

Here's how it should have gone:

Mom:  I want candy.  I don't have any candy.  Candy.  Candy.  Candy.

Me:  Mom, I'm coming up to see you tomorrow, and we will get some candy for you.  I hope you can hold out 'til then.

Mom:  Oh, of course I can!

The problems arise, I think, when I supply too much explanation and detail.  Details like the big box of variety candy, why I had to get that instead of just straight-up Baby Ruths, the number of candy bars left for her to consume every week, where the others are located . . . elements of conversation that would be normal for people without dementia, but are just incomprehensible overload for someone with no short-term memory.

And it's so, so difficult to constantly have to make the shift in conversational styles.

And, because Mom has no short-term memory, she asks questions all the time.  But, of course, she can't hold my answers in her mind, so the questions are repeated . . . and repeated.

My new, best-friend, go-to answer to a lot of these questions?

Ironically, it's "I don't remember."

I'm tellin' ya, it works like a charm!

 

Comments

[Margaret]

That would be SO frustrating and dispiriting. It sounds like you are doing what is best and even keeping your temper and patience(mostly) while doing so. I admire that!! Your brother is scary.

[Karenth49]

At just the mention of a reappearance of your brother, I navigated out of your post.

An hour or more later, I came back to face the music. Now I've read about Baby Ruths, all the while thinking about the visit to my own Mom I've just returned from. You and Miz S have been a great help to me as I travel the first steps of this drama. For each of us, the details are different, but the melody is the same.

Wonderful azalea pics!

[Miz S]

This is a very timely post for me. My mother and I had an "incident" last week that left me feeling tearful and resentful and somewhat martyred. I like the idea of scoring myself on my patience. I will make it into a game! A pathetic little game, but a game nonetheless!

Ugh - elderly people in the hospital. It's so sad to see them be all confused and disoriented.

Double Ugh - your brother. WHAT AN ASSHOLE.

[Pam Jones]

Well first, let me compliment the layout of this post. All those beautiful pictures carefully placed among all those sad observations. No, I take that back. They weren't all sad observations: many were amusing, some were heart-tugging, all were honest and close to the bone. You are really good at getting to the heart of the matter. (What's with all these body references? hearts, bones.) And your conclusion about how to conduct a conversation --

Me: Mom, I'm coming up to see you tomorrow, and we will get some candy for you. I hope you can hold out 'til then.

--is inspired. It's actually a good lesson for all of us. When someone casually ask "how are you today," they don't really want to know how you are. Not in detail. They want to hear "fine." It's not really a question. It's just noise to start, or complete, a conversation.

You're doing great with your mom. All these lessons you're basically teaching yourself about how to deal with her declining mental abilities are good lessons for all of life.

I'm late in seeing your post because I've started using Google Reader: it's supposed to be this convenient way to keep track of new posts on your favorite blogs, of which I have only about 8. But the trick is that you have to make the effort to look at Reader every day or you miss things. I've not looked at my Reader in many days because (pause for overly dramatic effect) I've been dealing with my bees, who last night at 7:30 I sent away from my house on the back of a little red pickup truck. When I can find the mental energy I'll post about it on my blog. It's such a tiny, small, insignificant event, but it feels huge in my tiny, small, insignificant world.

So good to hear from you!

[Karenth49]

Pam's on target about the conversation lesson. Especially valuable with manipulative, controlling par-- uh, people.

Suddenly summer: 90degrees, hot wind, fairly blue sky, SUN. No tornado or hail or rain for THREE days now. Last T was an hour away, so hardly counted anyway. No immediate plan to return to Mom, ten days since we left there!

A, it occurs to me that you and Miz S and I have truly invaluable tools, resources, reliable in-house BFFs in Tony, Mizter, and The Husband. We did SOMETHING right.